Songoftheday 8/19/14 - There's a quiet storm And it never felt like this before, there's a quiet storm that is you...

Sade - "The Sweetest Taboo"
from the album Promise (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day comes from the British jazz/soul band named for its Nigerian-born lead singer, Sade, who broke through to American shores with their ultra-cool neo-lounge R&B of "Smooth Operator". Although that single went top-5 pop in the States, as did their debut album Diamond Life, pop radio (and singles buyers) didn't latch on to any other of the outstanding tracks on that record, with "Your Love Is King" stalling under the halfway mark at #54. However accolades were continuing to come, and they would be nominated for a new artist Grammy they would go on to win in 1986. At the same time, the group released their second album Promise, and the first single from the project, the seductive "Sweetest Taboo" would bring them back to good graces with radio and got them over the "sophomore slump" jinx pretty quickly...

"The Sweetest Taboo" became Sade's second single to hit #5 on the American pop chart in March of 1986. The record also crossed over to Billboard's R&B (#3) and adult contemporary (#1, their second chart-topper) radio lists. Internationally, the single surprisingly only had moderate success in their native England, stopping at #31, coming close to the top-ten in Ireland, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, and just top-30 in Germany and France. However the album sold like hotcakes, going to #1 in the US and the UK (and Holland) and top-ten over most of the rest of Europe. And "The Sweetest Taboo" remains one of her most lasting hits, still being playing on quiet storm radio all over.

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Here's the band live in concert in 1993...

...and again on her Lovers Live show, which made the top-10 on the albums chart in 2002...

In 2000, the Mike City remix of Angie Stone's "Everyday" sampled the instrumental of the record...

The same year, Lil' Kim also interpolated the track for the chorus (sung by Mario Winans) on her "Single Black Female"...

In 1997, Patrice Rushen included a rather faithful version of "Sweetest Taboo" on her Signature album...

A year forward, and French group Les Nubians re-interpreted the song as "Tabou"...

I'll end by going back to Sade from her appearance on Dancing With The Stars...

Up tomorrow: A Canadian is offering up his entire aorta.